Monthly Archives: March 2011

Easter is just around the corner and that means chocolate bunnies and easter eggs. Here is a shout out from my favorite chocolate shop in Ann Arbor, Sweet Gem Confections.

From Nancy Biehn of Sweet Gem Confections
Spring/Easter collection will be up on our website by April 1st. Right now we’re busy making all kinds of spring things. We have small and large chocolate laughing bunnies in white, milk and dark, hand-painted milk chocolate eggs filled with delicious pectin jelly beans wrapped in brightly colored foil, organic peanut butter honey bunnies, and crunchy chocolate caramel-icious hand-painted easter eggs.

You can always call in your orders and we can talk to you over the phone, email us, or order from our website. Our Spring Products are available by phone now, and will be available on the website by April 1st.

Our bunnies are semi-solid and hand-poured with our special blend of single origin chocolate in milk, dark or white. We have small bunnies for $9. and large for $18.

We also have milk chocolate bunnies filled with peanut butter honey filling for $6.00
We have two kinds of eggs this year.
The first is a whimsical milk chocolate egg hand-painted on the outside, and filled
with real fruit pectin jelly beans on the inside. They rattle when you shake them, and are only $4.00 each.

The other egg is a bit more hoity-toity because of the fancy filling we are making for this one. It is also hand-painted, but filled with two delicious layers of confection. The first is a honeycomb crunch and the second is milk and dark chocolate burnt sugar caramel ganache. Can you imagine the crunchy yumminess you will experience when you bite into one of these? They come in a pretty little spring package and cost $10.00 each.

OK. For those following the Ann Arbor Sugar Beet Project, I have some bad news to report. But before I give my report, lets recap some of the successes.

1. Successful found non-gmo seeds
2. Planted the seeds and yielded about 50LBs of non-gmo sugar beets
3. Got a bunch of people to grow sugar beets too
4. Joined up with Amish farmer Danny Miller who also grew sugar beets
5. Was written up in Edible Wow
6. Had a successful fundraiser for equipment
7. Did a successful sugar beet molasses test with about 15LBS

OK. so where am I now with the project?

I looked in my bins where I was storing my beets to discover that they were all molding. I think the warm then cold weather did the beets in, which I kept outside in the cold winter.

The result is about 350LBs of moldy beets, which are now food for the compost pile.

With that said, I have two pounds of seed and all of the equipment to give it another go.

What basically happened is that the places/kitchens that I had arranged to use to process the beets fell through and I was not able to find a kitchen. I stored them outside in the cool fall temperatures, for what I figure would be a week or so, but it was longer. Too long it turned out.

As for the people who still have beets in the ground, I really cannot say if they have retained enough sugar to make it worth while to make sugar from them or if the had gone to starch, but we can do a small batch test. If it works, we might be able to savage the project some.

So what is the lesson and the plan for next year?

For starters, I am thinking smaller this year. If people want to grow beets I will provide them with some of my seed and if they need to borrow my juicer and seltzer bottle and containers for a small at home production I am willing to help..

But I am not planning a large scale sugar beet party that would require the use of a kitchen larger than my own.

The idea was to start a project that promoted people in the Ann Arbor area (and where ever they can grow sugar beets) who were interested in local food to bring back the tradition of at home beet sugar making.

If you would like to grow sugar beets this year and you want some seed, I would be happy to mail you some.

Last year, you helped fund The Perennial Plate — a weekly documentary series that went from a small Minnesota website, to a nationally syndicated show with over 12,000 weekly viewers. We created 52 episodes, from Squirrel hunting to community gardens and morels. Our hope was to entertain, learn and draw you closer to the people, animals and land that bring food to your plate.

With a year of making these films under our belt, we want to take The Perennial Plate to the next level. By traveling across the US (and into Canada), we hope to share the inspiring stories about alternatives to mainstream food with as many people as possible. As in Minnesota, each week I will be hunting, farming, fishing and foraging with these food heroes and then cooking up a delectable feast. Each week the videos will be posted on Huffington Post, Grist.org, Serious Eats as well as at theperennialplate.com

Great news for food lovers in Ann Arbor, and especially for vegetarians and vegans: you will have a terrific new dining option this spring! The Lunch Room is opening a food cart downtown that will offer healthy, delicious and economical vegan breakfasts, lunches, dinners, sides and baked goods. Our cart will be nestled among several others in a new courtyard on W. Washington between Ashley and First streets. The courtyard is slated to open in late April and will operate through mid-November.

This is the time to show your love for the Lunch Room! You may have eaten our food, you may have a personal connection with Phillis or Joel, or you may have an interest in delectable, wholesome, plant-based foods. Whatever your motivation, we need your help to bring our food cart to life.

HELP US GET THIS BUS ON THE ROAD!

Our goal is to raise enough to purchase and retrofit a 25-foot school bus, convert it to run on biofuel, and have the whole shebang up and making market stops and school visits around Washington, DC in early summer 2011. The Mobile Market will be where food is needed — in low-income neighborhoods known as “food deserts” — bringing healthy, local food to the places people naturally gather. And we need YOU to help make it happen!

WHY A MOBILE MARKET?

Imagine a brightly painted school bus running on recycled cooking oil and retrofitted with wooden crates bursting with fresh, local fruits and vegetables, eggs, cheeses, and humanely-raised meats. We’re collaborating with local farmers and communities across the region to bring fresh food, recipe ideas, and nutrition information to schools and neighborhoods in a healthy variation on the trendy food truck.

*I am pretty sure Dinner and a Movie is only available to WCC students, but anyone can come for the dinner.

There was a full house of 43 dinners last Friday with many taking the Dinner and Movie offer. Tickets for Dinner and Movie are available at the cashier counter on the second floor of the Student Center.

The meals at Garrett’s are based on a theme. Last Friday’s theme was an all vegetarian meal, which included a vegan offering. The meals come with rolls/bread, an appetizer, choice of soup or salad, an entree and dessert.

Garret’s Friday night service also offers a variety of beverage service with some nights featuring wine, beer or specialty alcoholic beverage.

They do not offer alcohol every night, however. On vegetarian night, Garret’s featured a table side tea service and they will be featuring smoothies on another night this semester.

Seating for the Friday night service begins at 5:30pm. The cost is around $15 per person. Cash, check, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover Card are accepted. There is an additional cost of $4.95 for the beverage tasting. Reservations are encouraged, and you can call 734-973-3592 to reserve a table. Upcoming dinners include:

* March 11: Vegetarian menu with tea tasting
* March 18: St. Patrick’s Day beer tasting
* March 25: Catch of the day with fruit smoothie tasting
* April 1: Southwestern celebration with margarita tasting
* April 8: Spring into summer with BBQ and beer tasting

Until then, they are keeping busy with their fundraising efforts to help raise money to build their custom food cart.

They have launched a successful Kick-Starter Campaign. Kick-starter is an online fundraiser website, which allows people to create an online fundraiser and it makes it really easy to receive donations for a creative project. Transactions are secure and run through amazon.com

They have also hosted several fundraiser events featuring their vegan offerings.

They told me that the cart they are building will cost around $8000. So far they have raised around $4000 and they are hoping to be able to receive enough large and small donations on kickstarter to make their dream a reality.

Any amount of donation will be much appreciated and it will help get a small local food start-up off the ground.

Ann Arbor Paczki Day Guide:

Voted #1 in Ann Arbor for his famous paczki, Polish Chefs Paul, Bartek and Marylka are at it again!
Celebrate Paczki Day & International Womans Day on march 8th in AMADEUS.
Complimentary paczki with lunch or dinner entree.
Call for reservations.
734.665.8767

Over at Zingerman’s, it’s time to make the donuts as Fat Tuesday leisurely approaches. I heard from Amy Emberling, managing partner at the Bakehouse, that this year for the first time, they’re taking orders for paczki — those delicious Polish deep fried dough balls. They’ll be filled with flavors including traditional plum and rose hip (mmm!), and also raspberry, vanilla pastry cream and cream cheese.

Of course Copernicus Deli in South Main Market will have paczki too — they bring in thousands, usually from a bakery in Hamtramck. But since it is a religious holiday being observed, I say, we should consider the path of virtue and the many reasons to eat our crucifers.

I like to joke with Emily that I am waiting for someone to come up with the “Jewish Deli” diet for health and weight loss. That would be a diet I could stick too. If such a diet existed, it would be based on the offerings of several iconic NY style delis like Zabars in NY and Flakowitz in Boynton Beach Florida. These places are the real deal.

Flakowitz is located around the corner from my Father’s house in Boynton Beach. The place has lines to get in on most days and their deli counter is the stuff of legends. When my brother Andrew comes to Florida, he calls in his order when he gets off of the plane and picks it up first before going to my father’s house.

I grew up in NJ and like many NJ/NY Jewish exiles, we all crave good jewish deli food. So when we find it, we attack.

Yes, we do have Zingermans here and they do a good job with many items.

I was kind of at a disadvantage going to Flakowitz this time because I was just getting over a cold and I was trying to eat lighter. With that said, I did manage to get some great offerings.

The first was a cup of Matzoh Ball soup and a half corned beef on rye sandwich. Before you even start your meal, they bring out light marble cinnamon cake pieces cut into small cubes.

Why doesn’t every restaurant do that?

We were so taken by this light cake that we were thinking of making it to sell at the Farmers Market this summer.

Cake seemed to be a theme in Florida. We noticed that the Whole Foods in Boynton Beach featured a cake/dessert bar along with their hot prep foods.

I have never seen a dessert bar in any other Whole Foods.

We were back a few days later to get bagels and some items for a Deli take out lunch. Emily got a Knish and I got bagels, some white fish salad and a individual chocolate Babka.

Individual Chocolate Babka?

These folks are geniuses.

Other offering were smoked fish, kosher pickles, all sorts of NY style cookies, cakes and pastry, take out soups, Deli Meats and Bread and all manner of NY Jewish Deli-ness.